Volume 19, Number 24
www.berlincitizen.com
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Plenty of laughs at library improv class By Charles Kreutzkamp The Berlin Citizen
| File photo
Timberlin driving range project on hold, for now By Charles Kreutzkamp
See Improv / Page 5
The Berlin Citizen
The fate of the Timberlin driving range upgrade has been in limbo since the cancellation of a public hearing on a proposed design by Saratoga Associates in April. Town Manager Denise McNair said at the time the hearing was canceled “due to further investigation of all options.” This could change soon, according to the club’s director of golf operations Jon Zuk. “We put everything on hold because of looking at the location and some of the opposition to the current location,” Zuk explained. Officials are planning to schedule an informal meeting in September that may include representatives from Saratoga Associates and area property owners. Zuk said that the original design may still be “on the table,” but that this See Range / Page 3
Attendees mime and act their way through a variety of improv games Aug. 4. | Charles Kreutzkamp / The Berlin Citizen
Forager helps others hunt for wild foods By Farrah Duffany Special to The Citizen
SOUTHINGTON — When he was young, Ben Lord would explore the forest and area around his home where the edge of town borders Berlin, near Ragged Mountain. During his childhood years investigating the wildlife around him and visiting national parks, Lord developed an enthusiasm for the outdoors. “My high school ambition was to run away and live out in the
land,” Lord said, laughing. “That was my goal and I fell in love and had other ambitions, but my interest continues in those topics.” Since then, Lord’s childhood passion brought him to study ecology and environmental studies in college as well as biology, which led him to start foraging for wild foods. Five years ago, Lord, a 1995 graduate of Southington High School and now a Vermont resident, started a blog with his wife, Laura Casey, called “The Foraging
Family, Adventures in Food and Freedom.” The blog combined Lord’s love for foraging with his wife’s love for cooking. The blog lists multiple types of plants in the wild and recipes the couple created to incorporate their findings. One recipe was a Columbian stew using the common weed called galinsoga. Galinsoga is actually an herb and can be consumed like cooked greens. See Forager / Page 9
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Timberlin Golf Course.
“Make bold choices, but avoid going to Crazy Town” – this was one of the pieces of advice offered at the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library Aug. 4. That afternoon, the library was the stage for entertaining characters including an alleged hula hoop expert, who traced the history of the hula hoop from wooden Native American hoops to industrial-age steel and bronze rings, before finally revealing the fictional secret that modern plastic hoops make a rattling noise because of the mouse droppings that inevitably get trapped inside. Fans of improvisational the-
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